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The September 23 Powerball lottery jackpot
of $200 million has been claimed recently by
a couple from Iowa. Former US Marine Tim Guderian
and his wife Kellie had purchased three tickets
from a store in Fort Dodge, where Tim now works
as a car dealer, and although the odds of winning
the draw were just 1 in 140 million, lady luck
rewarded the couple with the top prize.
The couple are no strangers to playing the
Powerball lottery, but winning the jackpot wasn't
really something they anticipated. "We
played the lottery about twice a month but never
expected to win," Tim Guderian said. "We
had bought the Powerball ticket the Saturday
of the drawing on our way to visit our parents
- we had stopped to buy a [soda] pop and decided
to buy a ticket as well."
Tim and Kellie didn't realise that they had
won the gargantuan jackpot until the next day,
when they stumbled across the lottery results
in a newspaper. Kellie describes what happened
when the checked them against their ticket:
"I held the ticket and Tim read off the
numbers and all I could say was, 'Oh my gosh,
oh my gosh!'"
In contrast with recent Mega Millions $163,000,000
winner Ben Chason, who hopped into his car and
headed for the claims office as soon as he discovered
his good fortune, the Guderians were a lot more
cautious about stepping into the limelight.
"We have been in shock ever since [discovering
the win]," Kellie said. "Winning this
amount of money is simply overwhelming. We have
been working with a financial planner and an
attorney so that we can manage these winnings
in a responsible way."
Powerball Jackpot winners are given a choice
between taking $200,000,000 in the form of annuity
payments, or a single lump sum. After taking
financial advice, Tim and Kellie opted for a
lump sum of $95,974,824.
The couple are now planning the best way to
spend and invest their winnings, and have already
decided to support a number of charitable organisations
and projects. Kellie said: "We believe
that we should share some of our good fortune.
We believe it's the right thing to do."
6 October 2006
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